There's been a lot of hype surrounding Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events, but the film doesn't quite live up to it. While it looks marvellous, and features noted actors like Meryl Streep (as overanxious Aunt Josephine) and Jude Law (the narrator), its plot is episodic and curiously insubstantial.
The Baudelaire children comprised of 14-year old inventor Violet (Melbourne's Emily Browning), reader Klaus (Liam Aiken) and biting toddler Sunny (Kara and Shelby Hoffman) are three attractive and resourceful orphans surrounded by well-meaning but foolish adults. Pursued for their fortune by the unscrupulous Count Olaf (Jim Carrey), they move from guardian to guardian, experiencing "a series of unfortunate events".
Directed by Brad Silberling, and also featuring Billy Connolly as the children's snake-handling uncle, the film's impressive at first glance and will certainly engage children. Aided by a prosthetic nose that gives him an appropriately sinister profile, Jim Carrey gives a unique performance that is simultaneously irritating and brilliant. His failed impresario is surrounded by a pancaked troupe of dissolute actors (including Jennifer Coolidge) that contribute to his menace. As for Carrey's dinosaur impression: it's uncanny. Emily Browning is particularly effective as Violet.
The film's adapted from three of the popular Lemony Snicket novels by Daniel Handler giving it an episodic structure which, in this case, is unsuccessful. Set in a hyper-real hybrid of the Victorian era and the 1950s, there's something of the fairytale in Lemony Snicket's. In many fairy tales, there are three variations on a theme (The Three Little Pigs, or Goldilocks and the Three Bears, for example), and Lemony Snicket's follows this but, unfortunately, replays the theme without variations. Or, more accurately, no character variations, but fantastical changes in production design and minor tweaks that are insufficient to advance the plot, given the lack of character development. It's this fundamental flaw that gives Lemony Snicket's its insubstantiality. Despite the truly gorgeous production design (courtesy of Sleepy Hollow designer and Tim Burton collaborator Rick Heinrichs), it's like that poor player: "full of sound and fury", but signifying nothing.
Ensure you stay for the credits, which feature charming hand-drawn animation in the style of The Triplets of Belleville. 3 stars.
The Baudelaire children comprised of 14-year old inventor Violet (Melbourne's Emily Browning), reader Klaus (Liam Aiken) and biting toddler Sunny (Kara and Shelby Hoffman) are three attractive and resourceful orphans surrounded by well-meaning but foolish adults. Pursued for their fortune by the unscrupulous Count Olaf (Jim Carrey), they move from guardian to guardian, experiencing "a series of unfortunate events".
Directed by Brad Silberling, and also featuring Billy Connolly as the children's snake-handling uncle, the film's impressive at first glance and will certainly engage children. Aided by a prosthetic nose that gives him an appropriately sinister profile, Jim Carrey gives a unique performance that is simultaneously irritating and brilliant. His failed impresario is surrounded by a pancaked troupe of dissolute actors (including Jennifer Coolidge) that contribute to his menace. As for Carrey's dinosaur impression: it's uncanny. Emily Browning is particularly effective as Violet.
The film's adapted from three of the popular Lemony Snicket novels by Daniel Handler giving it an episodic structure which, in this case, is unsuccessful. Set in a hyper-real hybrid of the Victorian era and the 1950s, there's something of the fairytale in Lemony Snicket's. In many fairy tales, there are three variations on a theme (The Three Little Pigs, or Goldilocks and the Three Bears, for example), and Lemony Snicket's follows this but, unfortunately, replays the theme without variations. Or, more accurately, no character variations, but fantastical changes in production design and minor tweaks that are insufficient to advance the plot, given the lack of character development. It's this fundamental flaw that gives Lemony Snicket's its insubstantiality. Despite the truly gorgeous production design (courtesy of Sleepy Hollow designer and Tim Burton collaborator Rick Heinrichs), it's like that poor player: "full of sound and fury", but signifying nothing.
Ensure you stay for the credits, which feature charming hand-drawn animation in the style of The Triplets of Belleville. 3 stars.
